Perhaps one of the most pressing challenges of having a database comprehensive enough to answer virtually any compliance question at your fingertips is finding an efficient way to deliver those answers in the middle of a mortgage transaction.
Tasked with this challenge, the design team at ICE Mortgage Technology came up with a search tool capable of doing just that and called it “Ask Regi.”
Ask Regi is a natural language search tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to parse through ICE’s massive AllRegs catalogue to help lenders and servicers address compliance questions based on simple, conversational text prompts.
The team of engineers behind the AI-powered search tool has had their work cut out for them staying on top of the multitude of regulatory changes since the start of the second Trump administration.
Whereas other AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT, are broader in scope and receive only periodic updates to their knowledge bases, Ask Regi focused solely on information contained within the AllRegs database and benefits from constant updates.
“We have a dedicated team that works on updating its archives of rules and regulations every single day,” ICE Senior Director of Government Affairs Courtenay Dunn told Dodd Frank Update during a visit to the company’s Washington, D.C. office. “They review every single thing on an ongoing basis.”
Staying on top of every rule that gets finalized and scheduled to take effect is a daunting prospect and requires a great deal of coordination with people in key positions.
“We work very closely with every federal, state and local regulator and body to make sure that we understand the changes,” Dunn said. “As soon as we have the information, we’re working on updating our database, because we don’t want our clients to be testing this on implementation day. We want them to be ready beforehand.”
Ask Regi was designed to allow lenders to phrase compliance questions in a conversational way, as if they were speaking with a person. Companies can also set parameters around its usage.
“If you wanted to start looking at, for example, the new interagency Quality Control Standards for Automated Valuation Models rule (effective Oct. 1), the first place you would start would be with our search tool on Ask Regi,” Dunn explained. “It’s a semantic search, so you would enter your question as you would while speaking naturally and what Ask Regi would do is help you pull up anything within the database that relates to the topic you’re asking about.”
Since the FHFA announced it will permit lenders to continue to use Vantage Score’s bi-merge credit scoring model, ICE has worked closely with the agency, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to understand how the corresponding new rules and guidance will be implemented once finalized, so the information can be incorporated into the Ask Regi library where users can then access and operationalize it.
“We’ve spent a significant amount of time over the past few years understanding where credit scores touch each point in the mortgage underwriting process from the perspective of our Encompass platform,” Dunn said. “We’ve also worked very closely with our clients to understand how they would want to operationalize these new processes.”
ICE ramped up its collaborative efforts with Fannie Mae again in September, when the government-sponsored enterprise announced its plans to utilize new disclosure files, effective Nov. 17, allowing lenders to choose between Classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0.
“We’re looking forward to working further with the agencies to understand the next steps in the implementation of this project for them,” Dunn said. “We’re awaiting information about what we will expect is FICO 10T, which will be the corresponding model to Vantage 4.0 because these will have new data elements in them. It is all important information that will bring new data to the forefront for consumers and, hopefully, provide more opportunities for those who historically have not had the data in their credit file under old regimes.”
The tool displays search results in two ways. One is with a bullet list of points intended to respond to the user’s question. The second is a narrative format reminiscent of a person-to-person conversation. Below those responses are links to corresponding regulations, rules or laws.
Lenders could also ask the tool for a breakdown of requirements with respect to specific types of loans, investors and underwriting considerations to determine the best course of action for AllRegs clients who have integrated Ask Regi into their workflows.
“It would search through all the regulations and then you can peel out the specific investor that you’re interested in doing business with,” Dunn said. “So that would be the first place that you would start. You can create whatever searches you want, and then you can keep that information or use it as you see fit. Some of the best feedback we’ve heard from our clients is how much they just appreciate that direct reference to the citations.”